figure
- Museum number
- 1895,0621.4
- Description
-
Bronze 'Hand of Sabazius' decorated with religious symbols.
- Production date
- 2ndC-3rdC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 15.24 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- This hand was found at Tournai on the Belgian-French border in the late-sixteenth or early seventeenth century. It was later owned by Dr Richard Mead (1673-1754), collector and physician to King George I (reigned 1714-27) and George II (reigned 1727-60). Mead's important collection contained many antiquities and works of art. At some point a replica of the hand was made and deposited in the Cabinet des Medailles in Paris. There it was engraved and repoduced in Bernard de Montfaucon's L'Antiquité expliquée (1722), an ambitious visual encylopedia of antiquity. Since then the replica in Paris has both been mistaken for the original and, more recently, condemned as a forgery.
- Location
- On display (G1/fc7)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2010 May -Nov, Musee Royal de Mariemont, Morlanwelz, Belgium.
2018-2019, 17 Oct-24 Feb, Strawberry Hill Trust, Strawberry Hill Restored
- Acquisition date
- 1895
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1895,0621.4
